Book Give-away

So.

I might have mentioned that I'm finishing up my book and it'll be available for purchase soon (hopefully mid-August).

I thought, though, that maybe another give-away was in order.

Starting today, and running until midnight (PST) on August 9th, you'll have the chance to enter for the chance to win one of five advance copies.


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Worst Trail Ride Ever Give-away

I've had a lot of worst trail rides.  Mostly, though, they're amazing, but any time you put horses and humans together in the wilderness things are going to happen.  Just ask the Bionic Cowgirl - her last worst trail ride involved a plate and nine screws in her right arm.

I have a whole list of worst ride stories.  I could tell you about the time my Barn Boss' horse went to noon on me, or about the time that I did a Hollywood-style dismount, or about the time we had to AirLife a guest out of the forest.  I don't know anyone who has been around horses who doesn't have a worst ride story.

With that in mind, I thought we'd do a little contest for Julie Goodnight's new book, GOODNIGHT'S GUIDE TO GREAT TRAIL RIDING.

Read about how Estes darn nearly broke my leg in half with a gate.

All you have to do to enter is to write a blog post (or two) about your worst trail ride and link up. The contest will run from now until Friday, December 23 at 11:59 pm MST.  The winner will receive an autographed copy of Julie's new book (Julie's autograph, not mine).

Note: Bionic Cowgirl, you are NOT eligible for this give-away.  Neither are you, Beel.

Winner!

Congratulations Shirley!  You won $25.00 to reward yourself for sucking it up.

Shoot me an email with your email address and I'll hook you up with Rebecca from Horse and Wildlife Gifts.

Sucking it up and a give-away

Last year, I had Mrs Mom and Mr Mrs Mom come up to Colorado to teach me how to take care of Estee's feetsies.  Since they came up late in the season, I didn't have to do a whole lot to maintain her feet.

When we brought the horses back up this spring, we had our farrier come up and do the trim, because there was no way I was going to take off as much hoof as need to come off.  Eventually, though, I knew I'd have to do it myself.  Frankly, it terrified me.  Ole Thrush came back for a visit and I knew that I couldn't put it off any longer.

Last week, I took a deep breath, put my big girl panties on and gave it a go.  First, let's just say that Mrs Mom and Mr Mrs Mom make it look far too easy, but I did learn something cool from them...



I may not be very good at the actual rasping of the hoof, but I can flip that damn rasp around and look impressive.

I was afraid to mess around with Estes' hooves, which is why I wanted to learn how to do it right.  Frankly, after learning more about trimming, I went from being merely nervous about it to having almost a paralyzing fear of it.  I could really screw up her hooves.  I took a deep breath, put on my big girl panties, picked up the hoof knife and made my first itty-bitty cut.  Estes didn't kill me and I didn't hurt her.  I shaved bit after bit off of her sole and frog, then hit it with the rasp.  To say that I was conservative would be an understatement, but I figured if I took off just the tiniest bit every week, I couldn't do too much damage.

It was, so far, the hardest thing I've had to learn to do to take care of my Equine Soulmate.

So, what about this give-away?  I know that we have all had to learn to do things that we were afraid/intimidated/didn't want to do in order to take care of our horses.  It may be the worst experience of our lives, but we suck it up and do it because we love our horses.

As a reward, someone should win a horse-themed gift.  Leave a comment telling us what you did/learned/overcame in order to take care of your horse.  Was it worming, vaccinating, trimming?  Certainly we've all had things that we didn't want to do, but did out of love for our animals.  Each comment left before midnight (MST) on Friday, June 17 will be entered into a random name picker and the winner will receive a $25.00 gift certificate to reward themselves with.